


Rapids

by SunnyDear



Series: Birthday fics [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyDear/pseuds/SunnyDear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma and Killian go white-water rafting, which doesn't go as smoothly as they might expect it would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rapids

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for the lovely hook-come-back-to-me on Tumblr! Happy birthday lovely Katie!

“GET INTO THAT EDDY SWAN”  
“WHERE?”  
“STARBOARD”  
“WHAT?”  
“LEFT, SWAN, LEFT!”  
“YOU’RE BLOCKING MY VIEW!”  
“PUT YOUR OAR-“  
A wave rushed up from the rapids and engulfed Killian at that point, so Emma never quite got to find out where exactly she was meant to be putting her oar. Just as her hand flashed out to grasp the back of Killian’s life jacket to stop him tumbling overboard, a wall of white slammed into her vision, and she choked, gasping and coughing at the same time only to be met with torrents of water as her head went under the waves. Her feet scrabbled desperately, trying to right herself as she was tossed along by the raging current. Killian had disappeared, and while one hand instinctively attempting to keep the plastic handle of her bright orange oar as far away from her face as possible, Emma floundered frantically with the other.  
Her face eventually broke the surface of the rapids. The world above her leaped and flashed with foam, and she gulped deep breaths as she looked towards the sky, letting her life jacket buoy her up. She realised she had never fully appreciated the power a river could have as she felt herself propelled at inhuman speeds towards the most welcome eddy of her life. Just like that, she suddenly felt herself gliding, the resistance of the calm, shallow water giving her the break she needed to turn around and slowly paddle to a stop.  
“EMMA LOOK OUT”  
In leaping aside, she almost fell straight back into the rapids again. Just seconds later, Killian cannonballed into the eddy alongside her, and skidded to a halt along the river rocks.  
“We. Are never white-water rafting. Again,” sputtered Emma between the strands of hair in her mouth as she splashed over to Killian and flopped down next to him, engulfing him in water once more.  
“This isn’t a raft, love, it’s a canoe,” he sounded utterly defeated. “But agreed.”  
They sat there quietly for a while, their fingers clinging to the bottom of the river to stop themselves drifting away in the gently undulating, waist-high water. Emma tried to rest her head on Killian’s shoulder, but found it was impossible to do so without floating up from her seat. Resignedly, she clasped his hand in hers, and the two of them stared blankly at their boat, wrapped hopelessly around a rock upstream.  
“Interesting date, wouldn’t you say?” Killian was the first to break the silence.  
“Aren’t you glad I made you wear the life jacket,” Emma murmured.  
“I didn’t need the contraption, I swim in the sea for fun!” he protested, sounding rather hurt.  
“Bet you didn’t think rivers could be this dangerous.”  
“Of course I did, I’m a captain,” he muttered mutinously.  
“Well, captain, how say we get our ship off that rock and go home?”  
“Not a ship, love. A canoe.”  
Killian expertly jumped up and stood in the now barely knee-high water, causing Emma to almost topple over for the second time. He pulled her up by the hand she was holding, and she pecked him on the cheek before peering at the boat. The gushing river water kept pressing it against the boulder it was stuck on, deluges of water pouring around it on all sides.  
“Aye, that’s stuck alright,” said Killian, one hand shading his eyes.   
“Not for long,” Emma closed her eyes in the morning sun. She imagined a rope in the hand unoccupied by Killian’s fingers. The imaginary rope snaked its way upstream and fastened itself to one end of the canoe. She gave an experimental tug.  
“Uh, love…” Killian began to speak, but Emma silenced him by holding up his hand. Her eyes still closed, she gave a firmer pull with her imaginary rope on the canoe. Its balance affected, it began to shift.  
“Emma…” Killian sounded concerned.  
“I’m concentrating,” she hissed. “So unless we’re about to be eaten by a crocodile-”  
She never got to finish her sentence. Her eyes snapped open as she felt herself flying to the side, pulled by Killian, their battered yellow canoe shooting towards them across the torrents. Just as her feet left the riverbed, the ground suddenly vanished entirely beneath her. Her magic deposited her and Killian, oarless, into the still speeding canoe which propelled them across the white-water. Waves splashed up around them on all sides as they were born into another patch of rapids, the two of them shrieking and frantically clutching to the insides of the boat.  
Predictably, they capsized for a second time shortly afterwards when, in the face of a bend in the riverbed, Killian leaned one way and Emma leaned another. They washed up again, this time in a different eddy, their canoe flying past them to the calmer waters downstream where they could see it revolving forlornly in waters hastily vacated by a flock of alarmed ducks.  
A concerned Mary Margaret opened the door several hours later in the growing dusk to Emma and Killian, extremely subdued and dripping wet. Killian sported a chip on his hook and Emma still had a riverweed twined in her hair. The two of them marched past her without a word, and even David didn’t try to stop them as they headed into the bathroom together to dry themselves. They fell asleep on the sofa, wrapped in the same blanket, while a sheepish Mary Margaret made the call to Gold’s pawnshop where Belle was more than happy to buy back the canoe after hearing of their predicament.  
Killian got by on one hand for several days while his hook was away being fixed, and they explained vehemently to Henry that they thought he should stick to dry land when he asked about the trip the next day. Emma and Killian swore they would give white-water canoeing another try some day – though with their lifejackets now sitting on the Jolly Roger, which at least one of them knew how to steer and considerably less danger of capsizing in the calm Storybrooke port, they didn’t get around to it for quite some time.  
The Jolly Roger, after all, was much safer.


End file.
